


Sometimes The Old Ways Are Best

by Catchclaw



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst, First Time, Frigga Doing Her Best, M/M, Memories, Odin's Bad Parenting, Post-Thor: Ragnarok (2017), Romance, Schmoop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-29
Updated: 2017-11-29
Packaged: 2019-02-08 12:44:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12864771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catchclaw/pseuds/Catchclaw
Summary: Loki found himself standing outside his brother’s quarters, wrapped in his nightclothes and worrying about the god on the other side of the door.





	Sometimes The Old Ways Are Best

At the last moment, Loki hesitated. He let his hand rest on the bulkhead beside his brother’s door and thought: perhaps this was not a wise idea after all.

But there was no question that Thor had been out of sorts at dinner. He’d sat between Miek and the Hulk and refused to participate in their enthusiastic babble; had maintained his silence even when Korg and the Valkyrie got into a shouting match over the last of the evening’s wine. A common enough battle, true, but one which Thor would have normally settled with a quick joke or a well-slung dinner roll. It still struck Loki to see his brother be so light-hearted a king; the years away from Asgard, he thought, had served his brother well.

He had not been so merry that night, however, and it had nagged at Loki, Thor’s retreat into himself. He considered it as he exchanged his everyday leathers for sleeping silks, as he dimmed the cabin lights and conjured a bouquet of floating candles in their stead. Even as he basked in their glow beneath gossamer sheets, still he was haunted by his brother’s silence. And that unnerved him. 

Yes, he and Thor were allies now—for the foreseeable future, anyway. And indeed they’d spent more time in close proximity of late than they had since they were knee-high to the All-Father. And yet…and yet Loki had dedicated a dozen lifetimes, it seemed, to undermining his brother. He had devoted himself to disrupting whatever grand plans Thor had for himself or for the universe and thus it struck him odd to feel—what was it? Ah yes: concern.

So Loki found himself standing outside his brother’s quarters, wrapped in his nightclothes and worrying about the god on the other side of the door.

He let his palm kiss the metal once more— _Enough of this_ —and before he could think better of it, he lifted his fist and knocked. A ridiculous anachronism, no doubt, given the wonders of the Grandmaster’s floating city, but no matter. Sometimes the old ways were best.

The intercom beside the doorway clicked on. “What?”

“It’s me,” Loki said. “May I have a moment of your time?” 

The ‘com grunted. 

Loki tried again, made an effort to sound serious. “Brother, I ask only a moment. There’s a small matter we must discuss.”

There was a heave he heard, then a sigh, and a moment later the door slid free from the bulkhead. He stepped into a room dark, bereft even of shadows. Once the door closed behind him, the only illumination was the faint eyes of the stars that blinked through the viewport at the far end of the room.

Loki summoned a candle, bid it hang in the air near his face. “Thor?”

“Over here,” a weary voice said near the viewport.

He waved the candle ahead and started to pick his way around the furniture. “You always do roll out your best for guests, don’t you?”

“I didn’t invite you.”

“Well, you did let me in.”

His brother made an irritated noise. “What is this urgent matter, Loki? Come, say your peace and then for once, let me be.”

“What are you doing sitting here in the dark?”

“Precisely that. Nothing more.”

Thor was slouched in a low seat, facing the viewport. He did not turn as Loki approached; did not stir even as Loki’s candle reached him and illuminated the few paces that still lay between them. 

“Please,” Loki said, coming to rest at his brother’s side, “don’t patronize me.”

“Then don’t ask stupid questions.” The words had sting but Thor’s tone did not; he seemed more tired than angry.

“Fine. This is not a question, it’s a statement of fact: I’m worried about you.” 

Thor snorted. “When in the seven hells have you ever been worried about me?”

“It’s been a while, I admit.”

“Well,” Thor said. “We can agree on that, at least.”

“Agreement is often a useful place to begin.” Loki laid a hand on his brother’s bare back; it was an old habit, more instinct than conscious choice, and to his surprise, Thor leaned back, just enough for Loki’s palm to take some of his weight. Just enough for Loki to hear very clearly: _Do that again_.

He stroked his thumb down the first few rungs of Thor’s spine and his brother's breath caught. It made something in Loki startle; when was the last time, he wondered, they had touched each other thus?

They had always communicated more precisely through touch than they’d ever been able to with words. It had been so even when they were young: when their flesh met, they understood one another; when their language tangled, chaos was often the result. Even still, in childhood, they had been incredibly close; two little boys running through the golden halls of Odin’s palace, their arms slung around each other, their heads close together, never more than a hand’s width apart. Together, they’d built their own little world, a realm that even the All-Father could not rule, and oh, how that had annoyed him.

As they shot through their youth, their affection for one another had not faded, even as Thor began to train for some future war and Loki began to explore all that was possible in magic. Indeed, Loki remembered those days as a joyful blur, the vagaries of childhood giving way to a sense of dedication, of purpose.

“One day,” their mother liked to say, “the kingdom will be yours to rule, the protection of the Realms your shared responsibility. And now, my dear Loki, you have come to the time when you must do all you can to prepare so that you and your brother are ready for this glorious challenge.” She would tip her fingers beneath his chin and tilt his eyes up to meet the warm gold of her own. “Can you do that for me, little one? For Asgard?”

“Yes, Mother,” he would say, beaming. “I can. And I will.”

It was a heady time for them both. After the busy hours of the day, they would meet in corners of Odin’s castle they’d long ago claimed as their own. Thor would fill their meeting place—an abandoned war chapel, or the Valkyries’ dusty armory, or the _tjenere_ ’s sewing room—with stories of ancient battles and old glory. Loki would chime in with tales of weird magics and sorcerers who had brought down kings, and though neither shared the passion of the other for his subject, they were energized by each other’s excitement.

One night, Thor said: “There will be a day when we fight together. Can you imagine that?” He leapt to his feet, his cheeks red with glee. “You and me, brother, beating back any who would dare to threaten Asgard.”

Loki laughed and leaned back deeper into the piles of soft fabric they’d tumbled from the sewing tables. “Sometimes I think you’re too anxious for such a moment to come. I for one have no desire to wage a battle today.”

“Do you not?”

“No, I’d much prefer to—“ His words were cut off with a crush as Thor leapt on top of him and caught him hard about the shoulders.

“Since you have no desire to fight,” Thor said with a smirk, “I assume you will simply surrender.”

Loki snorted and showed off his teeth. “You suppose wrong.”

Thor was bigger than he and stronger in body, but Loki was wily and more than willing to play dirty; even then, as nearly grown men, their scuffles usually ended with black eyes or a knee to the groin. Sometimes both.

He struck a blow to Thor’s throat and they rolled, twisting in the _myk_ blues and greens. Loki caught the leg of a table and used it as leverage, flipping his brother on his back. Thor flailed and Loki struggled to keep his hips pinned long enough to get in a good sock or two. It wasn’t easy.

“My poor cricket,” Thor said, ramming his elbow in Loki’s ribs, “spindly arms and long legs will do you no good now, will they?” Loki snarled and tried to counter with a warrior’s belt hold on Thor’s neck but Thor grabbed his wrists and shoved them over again, pinned Loki beneath his full weight. “There now,” he said, his smile as wide as his face. “Admit it: you are outmatched. Surrender.”

“Being a stone is no feat,” Loki panted. “Especially one who attacks without warning. That’s a coward’s way to win.”

Thor beamed, his face flushed behind his first whiskers. “Coward or not, I am the victor.” He leaned down, so close their noses brushed. “Say that you surrender and I’ll let you up. Simple as that.”

There was silk ribbon in Thor’s hair and what looked like glitter on his face and a dozen ways Loki could’ve slipped from his hold, and yet he could not think of a single one; for all at once having Thor atop him felt not like a threat, but a gift. 

He did not remember how the universe shifted, only that had.

“All right,” Loki said in the slim valley between their lips. “I surrender.”

Then their mouths were fused together and they were both groaning: raw, guttural sounds that Loki had never heard before, never made. His feet were tangled in something strong and soft and he fought to free himself, kicked the fabric away and wound his legs around Thor’s waist, rutted like a sweet, hungry beast.

“Yes,” his brother hissed. “Yes, cricket. Like that.”

He had never been so hard before, never felt so needy, never come as hard in his own hand as he did in his brother’s that night.

And oh, the soft things Thor had whispered as he rocked against Loki’s hip, they had made him swell again; so too the hollow cries Thor tucked in his ear as he emptied himself across Loki’s skin.

They had kissed again and touched again and come until the air stank with sex and sang with their affection.

“I did not know your lungs were so capable,” Thor said against Loki’s temple. “I’m sure I’ve never heard you put them to such vociferous use.”

Loki pinched his side. He felt heavy and sticky and his face ached from its smile. “Smugness does not become you, brother.”

Thor kissed his hair. “Mmhmm. Of course it doesn’t.”

They’d fallen asleep like that, wrapped together in the colors of a dozen worlds, and therein lay their mistake. For Odin had found them.

Loki remembered waking to the sound of the door, the creaky ache of its hinges, and then his father’s voice, a war cry: “What monstrosity is this?!”

Odin had shouted and railed for what seemed like hours and yet what was most vivid in Loki’s memory was the defiant look on his brother’s face as he stood before their father with his leathers undone, his hair still knotted by Loki’s hands.

“We have done nothing wrong, Father,” Thor said when Odin finally took a breath. “It is the way of youth, is it not? You yourself have told me it was thus with your comrades-in-arms when you were young.”

Odin’s eye was a spear. “Not with my own kinsman, boy!”

Thor shrugged. “That is not how I remember it. Did you not tell me of a cousin with whom you—“

“Your brother,” Odin spat, “is not your comrade. The way he will make through the Realms is different than yours. Battle will be yours, Thor, not his. It is time you understood that.”

“Two paths may run parallel, may they not? So it will be with him and me.”

Something had crossed their father’s visage then, as if a spirit had called his name from Valhalla. Rage drained away, if only for a moment, and in its place: fear. “No,” Odin said, shaking the shadow away, “oh, no, son. It will not.”

He reached for Thor’s shoulder with one angry paw and pulled and in the instant before they were parted, Thor reached out and squeezed Loki’s hand. The heat of his fingers was familiar and yet it was not, for now Loki knew the music his brother’s touch could summon from his skin.  
  
“Have faith, little brother,” Thor had murmured. “Have faith.” 

After that, the All-Father had made a concerted effort to keep them apart. But they were both stubborn—Odin’s sons, indeed—and there had been other hours like those in the sewing room, other joyful trysts spent indulging in each other’s pleasure. And yet, it was not so very long before Loki’s days were spent solely in the company of their mother, magic stirring in his fingertips; before Thor’s waking hours were occupied with clamor and violence and hearty declarations of his place in the Realms. He alone was to be their protector, their champion, and no vision, Loki learned, ever stirred Thor so than one of glory.

The distance between them had widened slowly, steadily, like land masses parting, their affection souring into suspicion, and only in retrospect could Loki see their father’s hand in it, wielding the spade. 

And for what? Years of strife, of needless destruction, of pain. All so their father could finally fritter off to the Eternal Realm, make way for the destruction of Asgard, and leave them alone together to pick up his mess?

Thor’s voice stirred him from his reverie. “What is making you sigh so, Loki?”

“I was thinking of Father.”

Thor shifted, and only then did Loki realize that his brother had leaned back until his spine was pressed against Loki’s body, his head resting on Loki’s chest, and that the hand he had lain on Thor’s back now lingered over his brother’s heart.

“What of him?” Thor said.

“That he worked his whole life to keep us at odds. To foster mistrust between us, and suspicion, and yet for all his efforts, here we are again: together.”

He felt the tips of Thor’s fingers brush his wrist. “So we are.”

“Now,” Loki said. “Fair turnabout: what is it that’s troubling you?”

Thor’s reflection in the viewport grimaced. “You’re not going to leave until I tell you, are you?”

“Highly unlikely.”

Now it was Thor’s turn to sigh. “A woman came to see me today. Lyra. She was a servant in our mother’s house after we were grown. She is older, now; the years since mother’s death have not been kind. And one of her daughters was in the palace guard and died at Hela’s hand.”

“I see.”

“But she came not to complain of her travails or to ask for any favor. She came to give me this.” From the pocket of his breeches, Thor drew a slim golden band that was speckled like starlight. “Do you know it?”

With his free hand, Loki reached for it, and when he closed it in his fingers, he could hear his mother’s voice, feel her spirit curl around him like sweet-smelling smoke. “I remember her wearing it. It was Odin’s first gift to her, was it not?”

“Yes.”

“How did Lyra come by it, then?”

“Mother gave it her to protect. Lyra thinks she heard death approaching even before Malkeith and his foul accomplices arrived, and she wanted you and me to have it."

For an instant, it was Frigga’s face Loki saw reflected in the stars. He felt tears in his eyes and pressed the ring back into Thor’s hand. “I need no remembrance of Mother.”

“Nor do I.” Thor’s voice was a feather. “And I don’t deserve one. I cannot help but feel that she would be crushed by what I’ve done.”

It took Loki a moment to understand what his brother meant. “By what you’ve done?” he repeated, incredulous. “Saving Asgard? What did Heimdall call it—ensuring the survival of our people? These are things you think Mother would protest?”

Thor’s body sagged. “I have done these things, but at what cost? Think of all that is lost to us, Loki. Our history, our way of life. What the All-Fathers before us have built, I have seen destroyed.”

“None of this is your fault. Don’t take that upon yourself. The wrongs that brought us to the edge of Ragnarok were Odin’s and his mistakes are his, not yours.”

Thor said nothing, only stared into the infinite as if he could see its very soul.

Loki took a breath. “The All-Father worked very hard to make you in his own image. Or what he imagined himself to be,” he said gently. “But believe me, brother: you have already proven yourself a wiser king than he.”

“How so?”

“He thought the best course was always to bury the past, whereas you know, now, that sometimes you have to burn it all down.”

Thor turned his face up, eye electric. “There was no other choice.”

Loki cupped his cheek. “Of course there was. You could have made one last foolish stand against Hela, in the name of your own pride, and died protecting the corpse of our realm, consequences to everyone else be damned.” His lips turned up. “That’s what Father would have done.”

“Do you think so little of him, Loki? Even now?”

“Don’t you?”

There was a tug on the back of his thigh, a sudden pull, and Loki felt Thor’s hand wrap around it. An anchor. One that could steady them both.

“Think of it,” Thor said, “how Odin must have seen us. He would have looked upon us always with the knowledge of Hela, of the power of his firstborn. Put yourself in his place: if only a single child brought him to the edge of destruction, what havoc might two of them in concert have wrought?”

It was a simple leap, a logical one, and yet until Thor gave it voice, Loki hadn't made the connection. He spoke slowly, feeling his way through the words: “He thought it in his best interest that we not get along, didn’t he? He was sure that we’d be forever at one another’s throats--“

Thor’s smile was a faint ray. “And when we were not, he worked to see that we so became. What better way to ensure that we would never be a threat to him, hmm? How could we be, so long as we battled each other.”

The bile rose in Loki’s throat. “Selfish old man. What a bitter creature he must have been.”

“Perhaps. But he could not speak his heart to us until he was on the edge of Valhalla,” Thor said. “That is a tragedy.”

“I’ve never known you to be one for sentiment, brother.”

The hand on his thigh fell away and Thor spun the chair to face him. “He should have said those things to us—to you—centuries ago," he said, urgent. "Think how much different our lives might have been if he’d shown that he loved us for who we were, not for who he insisted we become.”

“Different, indeed. Though who’s to say they would have been better?”

Sadness touched Thor's visage again. “True.”

Loki tipped his knuckles beneath his brother’s chin. “And yet,” he said, “you are the king of Asgard at last and despite Odin’s best efforts, I am here at your side. Two paths that ran parallel, it seems, have ended at the same point.”

“Have they, cricket?” Thor said.

“Yes, brother,” Loki said. “They have.”

He bent over as Thor reached up and their lips met, electric and sweet. It had been lifetimes at least since their mouths had touched thus and yet it was as if it had been only moments.

Thor tasted of Sakkarian wine, of cinders, of the first drops of rain, and his mouth was hot—oh, that Loki had forgotten—hotter still when their tongues touched, when Loki stroked the fine skin of his throat.

“I too cannot speak my heart,” Loki said after a time, “but I can show it you, if you will have it.”

“I will. Whatever you wish to give.” Thor chuckled and climbed to his feet, his hands snaking over Loki’s hips. “And I will try to do the same.” 

Loki stripped Thor from his breeches and Thor pulled Loki from his nightclothes and soon they were wound tightly together, skin to skin, Thor’s body pinning Loki to the bed, to this moment, this place.

“Oh, Loki,” Thor whispered. “I have missed you.” 

When Thor filled him, a shot of heat and heavy light, Loki shouted and let his brother drive the last of the ice from his veins, let him replace it with the smell of sunshine, the promise of a future they would write, not their father.

Thor bit kisses into his neck and Loki clawed at his back and together, they gave voice to their pleasure, their shared love, their pain, and at its crest, as the stars opened and the cosmos beckoned, Loki could feel it, what it was their father had feared: the bond that lay between them burning again, the true eternal flame.

Thor laughed, a hearty, hoarse sound. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, cricket. Come like that again.”

Loki shook in breathless delight. “Well, brother,” he managed, “why don’t you make me?”

 

****

 

In the morning, Thor said: “You were worried about me.”

“I was not.”

His brother dug his whiskers between Loki’s shoulder blades and Loki could feel the grin there, lurking. “You were. You said: _I’m worried about you_.”

“My concern was purely professional. Official, even. In my role as your advisor."

Thor’s nails eased over Loki’s hip and skated over his stomach, drawing Loki into a long, sleepy arch. “Really?” Thor said.

“Indeed. It would not do to have an ill-tempered king.”

A hum, a nip at his ear. “I wholeheartedly agree. Which is why we are skipping breakfast.”

Loki twisted, trying to get Thor’s hand someplace more interesting. “Are we?”

“Mmmm. We are.”

“And what alternative are you proposing?”

Thor kissed Loki’s neck, nuzzled the chain from which their mother’s ring now hung. “I’m going to suck you until we are both satisfied.”

“Promises, promises.”

Thor growled something wordless and turned Loki over, leaned down into his face, beaming, and yes, Loki thought, there was the face of a god: one destined to rule his own way, with grace and wile and the fiercest felicity. There was the true face of Thor.

“Have faith, little brother,” Thor murmured, his fingers leaving sparks in their wake. “Have faith.”


End file.
